Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford, 1972please click on the icons above and
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Nick Waterlow, Director at the Bear Lane Gallery kindly
offered me this show. I wanted to use the exhibition to explore ideas about
gambling and chance. Some people had characterised my work as analytical, which
was not strictly true. Although my painting process required a considerable
degree of strategic planning, the work was always open to chance and to intuition
even though the organisations of the paintings where often symmetrical in
appearance. I was interested in the way my western cultural heritage forced me
to perceive 2 dimensional images in particular ways. I would have liked to be
able to step outside of these traditions but found I was not able to transgress
the boundaries of these habits except in minor ways. These works play with this
problem and also with illusion itself: exact copies of devices being used to
articulate spaces in very different ways.

There are also references to other forms of my work that
related to my interest in paintings in an architectural or environmental
setting and could even be conceived of as drawings for sculptures.

The space at the Bear Lane was a difficult one due to the
narrow space and low beamed ceilings, but the exhibition proved a great
stimulus for me to explore my ideas and to give the viewer a visual treat.

Some of these works were shown again at the Woodlands
Gallery in Greenwich in an exhibition entitled ‘Space at the Quadrangle’.The space of this gallery suited the work
much better. ‘Good and Bad Luck at the Tables’ was acquired for the City of
York Art Gallery.

I was recently greatly saddened to hear of Nick Waterlow’s
death at the hands of his own son. Although I had no contact with him after
this exhibition I used to get reports of his success in Australia from my
friend, the artist, William Delafield-Cook. I found Nick to be a great human
being and a genuine supporter of artists and their work. I count myself very
lucky to have met him.